


Chemistry

by stardust_made



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt was "First time Sherlock and John held hands without one of them having to drag the other down the street for something."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemistry

John has never seen Sherlock’s Adam’s apple so busy.

“Shall we have a cuppa before we go?” he says and shyly touches his sparkling, brand new boyfriend, tucks a curl behind Sherlock’s ear.

Sherlock shakes his head nervously but doesn’t say anything. He does turn his face to rub John’s retreating palm as it passes. John is overcome with the desire to bring his own hand to his face and bury his nose in it, to inhale Sherlock’s cologne like he was doing secretly after each “accidental” touch only two weeks ago. In turn, what helps him overcome _that_ impulse is the sweetly nestled awareness that later tonight, after they return from the do, he’ll take Sherlock to bed to smell and taste and have to John’s heart’s—and body’s—content.

John clears his throat and checks himself mentally. Besotted though he be (And isn’t it stupefying how after months of low simmering, his attraction to Sherlock has escalated madly since their first kiss, until now it boils out of his pores!) it won’t do to go out with an—erm—in physical discomfort. _Later_ , chimes a line of bells in his stomach, some high, some low. Later.

Sherlock looks dashing in his midnight blue suit; he’d be an absolute killer if he looked less anxious and more like his usual a-touch-arrogant self. He is still swallowing visibly as if he’s got three Strepsils lozenges in his mouth.

“Shall we?” John says. Sherlock stares at him, obviously plagued by a last-second realization that this is happening for real. John gives him a lopsided smile of encouragement and opens the door to let him out first. Sherlock hesitates, then walks past in a cloud of fresh, heady scent and a blur of elegant, tantalizing movement. John lifts his eyes to the ceiling in a silent plea, breathes in deeply, and follows Sherlock down the stairs.

***

Everyone will be here. Every single mind-blowingly stupid boy who has grown into a stupid man. Every conceited fool who equated affluence to class and inherited status to brilliance. Every oddball who was generously promoted to the normative table the moment the real freak came down for breakfast.

Sebastian will be here.

Sherlock hadn’t cared at the time. Correction—he hadn’t thought he cared at the time. But lately emotions have hopped in him like chestnuts on a hot stove. Sherlock’s past is no longer safe and his present has been properly turned inside out, too, all thanks to the extraordinary, dapper little man by his side.

John is looking so…distinguished tonight. Sherlock feels like an intruder twice over: He feels out of place among this crowd of matured—but not particularly mature—former college mates. (He has noticed so much already, even through the haze: He could point out at least three adulterers; two “successful” businessmen, heavily in debt; and one individual whose secret is so guilty that even the tabloids wouldn’t buy it.) But secondly, Sherlock feels like he’s intruding in John’s personal space, like he doesn’t really fit into the shape of the person who should stand by John as his partner. Sherlock feels like the plus one, rather than the other way round. In fact, he feels like he should become the minus one to John, who is astonishingly normal, inexplicably wholesome, so perfectly unique. And yet, against all reason, so incredibly _Sherlock’s_ , too.

Incredibly. In-credible. Non-credible. Non credo. I don’t believe.

The sea of faces is changing—little piranhas are showing their heads above the surface to have a good look at Sherlock. _Dinner_ , he can read in their small, beady eyes.

Then he feels a slightly calloused, warm hand wrap calmly around his thin, damp one. It squeezes and pulls him forward as John starts making his way through the sparse crowd.

“Let’s go and find that old professor you wanted to see,” he says. “I’d like to shake the hand of the man who taught you three semesters of Chemistry without losing his eyebrows, or worse—shaving off yours!”

Sherlock follows John like the sailor follows the fixed beam of the lighthouse.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by the fantastic [](http://disastrolabe.livejournal.com/profile)[**disastrolabe**](http://disastrolabe.livejournal.com/). Written for ningen_demonai. Original entry [over here](http://stardust-made.livejournal.com/40070.html) at my Livejournal.


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